help me hold on to you
by Ellie 5192
Summary: "... Now she has no idea where she's going, content to let someone else take the driver's seat, curious but unconcerned about the passing traffic, the thickening trees, the direction that should take them deep into the mountains." In which Jackie and Remy have to decide what they do next, and it's not what either of them expected. J/R, canon-compliant.


_Let's call this canon-divergent, because I'm not paying any attention to the politics of the show after these two drive off into the sunset, namely because I didn't watch it. Jackie Sharp / Remy Danton, s2-4. Many thanks to my co-conspirator Shannen, who spit-balled 90% of this with me._

_In my head they get to be happy. _

~0~

**help me hold on to you.**

~0~

It goes unspoken that Remy will arrive out the front of her hotel building some time before the article drops; that they'll be in the car the same time the pundits get a copy but gone too quick for reporters to yet be outside the door. A simple text with instructions, and then their phones will be ignored for a while, a novelty for them both.

_Pack a bag, I'll come pick you up._

Alan is in surgery, the kids are in school, the last of her things from the apartment are already in storage. The air is eerily grey when she walks outside the Hyatt and gets in Remy's sedan.

"Surprise me", she says a little while later, and with a smile watches him navigate west onto the I66. She turns on the CD player so they don't have to listen to the radio, and feels the weight that's been pressing down on her these past three years melt slowly away as she gets lost in the music, even letting herself hum along sometimes. They don't say anything until suburbia starts to turn into trees, and concrete freeway gives way to the steady stream of black bitumen.

"It'll be okay", he says to the road, glancing at her.

"I know", she replies with her eyes closed, although she doesn't.

It had been her idea to set fire to their Washington careers before others could burn them at the stake. It had been her idea to tell Alan about the affair regardless of what she and Remy did next. It had been her idea for them to disappear for a few days to let the initial wave of outrage roll away.

Now she has no idea where she's going, content to let someone else take the driver's seat, curious but unconcerned about the passing traffic, the thickening trees, the direction that should take them deep into the mountains.

She hasn't felt this relaxed – this free – in years.

It's terrifying.

The two of them started working in Washington with the belief they could beat it, better it; somehow play the system while holding to a moral code that let them sleep at night. Make a difference without being made different.

Remy was smart enough to place his faith in money, a universal constant. It took Jackie a long time to accept that no needle would ever take away the sting of slowly chipping away at her ideals until there was nothing left but a woman who had given her life, her love, her soul, to a machine that would never love her back. She still loves her country, but she hates what she has done in the name of its betterment.

The longer she was under the Underwoods' thumb, the less scary she found the thought of leaving.

Now that she has, not one part of her regrets it. That's terrifying too.

Maybe Remy taught her how. Maybe she found the courage on her own.

She looks out the windscreen and feels calm. It doesn't matter how it happened, only that it did.

"A friend of mine has a cabin. We can lie low for a few days", says Remy, although she didn't ask. It does make her glad she packed for the cold weather, though.  
"Is there a lake?" she asks with a grin, turning to look at him. Winter is just around the corner, but she doesn't care. Remy's little scoff tells her there's probably no lake, but there'll be time enough for skinny dipping in the rest of their tomorrows.

~0~

Hearing Remy speak French always makes her smile like a schoolgirl, and he knows it, and it's infuriating. Part of her wishes she would stop reacting to him as viscerally as she does, but she's never truly been in love before and figures she deserves the chance to blush at the way he pronounces her full name to the waitress.  
Jackie has loved people before, but never like this.

They don't often get recognised outside of the US. It's refreshing to walk around without any expectations hanging over them. On the day of the midterms – knowing that the extent of her personal disgrace and the power of super PAC money made the results a foregone conclusion – they got on a flight direct to Montreal. Remy was busy making love to her in their hotel king bed when the results were announced, and neither of them bothered to answer messages until the following morning.

It's cold and grey and windy, and they've been revelling in the freedom for days. They find a small coffee place with homemade bagels and sit in the window to talk about what the fuck they're supposed to do now that Washington has taken its claws out of them both.

"I still have my condo in Napa"

Not that she has any real desire to retire to the hills of California, but if they want to stay Stateside it's an option.

It's still a foreign feeling to make plans with Remy and know whatever happens, they are in it together, living together, making a future together. Her entire life, she's been told where to go and where she would live, and what she'd be doing when she got there. Washington never felt much different to the Army. And then almost overnight she lost a career, a husband, two step-kids she was just learning how to parent; the path of her life took a swift and decisive turn by her own hand, and Jackie wants to be more cautious about getting in so deep with Remy so quickly, and without a backup plan. But she doesn't fear it. These days it's the only thing of which she's truly certain.

Remy takes a sip of his coffee before answering.

"I don't think that's the best idea", he says. He's right, for a lot of reasons.

Besides. Napa never truly felt like home anyway.

D.C doesn't either, now.

"Where were you thinking?", she asks, and watches his eyes track around this little coffee shop near the heart of town, filled with students from all over the world tapping away on laptops with their headphones in.

"What about here?"

She nearly spits out her mouthful. For a moment she thinks he's joking, but almost instantly she can tell he's not.

"What?"

Remy shrugs, takes another sip, sets his mug down and links his fingers together with clasped hands on top of the table. He catches himself – thinks it might be too formal, too businesslike, too much like the people they're leaving behind – and unclasps his hands to instead rest one on her knee where it's crossed next to him.  
"Academia is the next logical fit, don't you think?"

No, not really, she doesn't think. Remy has other options – he could go back to law if he really wanted, although he'd probably hate it, or take a job of his choosing with a lobby group or a think tank – but Jackie doesn't have that kind of fallback. She could probably find something in the private sector, but like Remy, the implications of their tell-all interview will follow them around for a long time; a stain they can't wash out. Her credentials are all wrapped up behind Army Intelligence, or her experience in Congress; it looks great on a resume but doesn't provide much of a Plan B outside of the very same doors now closed to them. While the Underwoods remain in power, she and Remy will always be pariahs, and if they aren't working for the US government, or as lobbyists in the private sector, then there aren't many options besides the inevitable magazine exposés and book tours and...

And academia.

"Here?" she asks again.

Canada, of all places.

Montreal, of all places.

Remy takes a deep breath in, looks about, before meeting her eye again. "If we really want a fresh start, here's as good a place as any"

And what he really means is, if they want to live a different life, away from the scandal and the pressure of who they used to be, then they can't stay anywhere near D.C. And if they aren't there, they might as well be anywhere else in the world. At least Canada is closer to their families than Europe, or South America, or New Zealand.

"And you and me, we just waltz into a university and offer ourselves up for a teaching position? Just like that?"

He smirks at her because she lacks any bite. And he can see her posturing for what it is, which is both wonderful and infuriating. They could make a life here, escape back to Napa on breaks if they want some sun, holiday in Florida if they really want to get away.

His tongue runs over his bottom lip before he answers, almost distracting her from his reply. "I know a guy over here who did something similar. Between the two of us we have three degrees and thirty years of firsthand experience in political science. I think any university would be crazy to turn us away"

She can't argue with that, even if all the tiny little details in between will probably drive her mad.

And Remy speaks French, which is its own kind of incentive.

Jackie takes another sip of coffee, her eyes unfocussed out the front window at the first snow flurries of winter, the people walking in heavy jackets and scarves and hands buried in pockets. _You'd wither away anywhere but the hill_. And even if that's still true, at least they have a chance to choose where they wither.

"… bienvenue à Montréal", she mutters, and feels Remy's hand squeeze her knee in reply.

~0~

"We've only been here eight months, how do you already have a full McGill class load?"

Remy looks up from the powerpoint slide he's editing over breakfast, and shrugs. "Hey, you chose not to go full time yet; I can't help that I'm good"

Jackie rolls her eyes. She wanted to give herself time to enjoy Christmas in Canada, and to acclimate to a winter that never wanted to fucking end. Six months of consulting with Belfer and Brookings has kept her brain from turning to mush, but she's been focussed on not freezing to death in their first couple of months, quietly finalising her divorce back in D.C., and setting up what might be her first ever _home_ as spring turned into summer. She still feels entirely un-Canadian in every way, and far too Californian to ever be used to snow. But she finds she loves the beautiful August days, and the pace here is so far removed from anything she's ever done that it's like living on a permanent holiday. Remy has already decided that next winter they'll spend more time at her little condo in California, and no doubt they'll make themselves stupidly busy after a while, but for now, the life they're building here, together, is… well, it's nice.

Jackie takes a seat on the other side of the table and slides his class schedule over to take a look. "I'm going to sign up to your Law and Policy subject", she says with her tongue pressing against the back of her teeth.

"You have to be studying the degree to attend the lectures", he says without looking at her.

"Okay. But say I happen to be early for a lunch date with you, couldn't I just… wander in?"

Remy gives her a look over the top of his laptop screen, but she just grins a little wider.

"Get a job"

"I have a job"

She has many little jobs, including a new lecturing position of her own, on Middle Eastern foreign policy. Ten years in military intelligence and another decade legislating on the subject in Washington must count for something, after all. She's just not rushing out to sign her life completely over to a university – or to any one place – just yet.

"Get a job with more hours", he says back.

"I work the same hours as you"

Just because some of them happen to be in her track pants on the couch, answering emails from Washington pundits with too much time and money to spend, doesn't mean she's not working. The consulting life is a strange one – part subject matter expert, part lobbyist – but they've both got plenty of money in savings and this way she can pick and choose where she directs her energy. She's still very persuasive, after all.

It's hard, not jumping into every fight, not answering every enquiry that comes her way. It's hard reminding herself to stay true to the principles that made her blow the whistle. It's hard not being in the thick of it, much harder than she ever imagined, even if articles decrying their actions still sometimes float around the internet reminding her of why they did it.

Remy makes it easier. He seems to have a better grasp of what's important, or perhaps just more practice at it. And he never made the kind of blood oath to it all that Jackie sometimes felt she owed. That she'd earned.

Conversations with Alan come back to her on the quiet days. His encouragement of her ambition was a virtue she thought she appreciated in their marriage. But looking back it was just a symptom of the bigger, deeper issue; that he was more familiar with the ruthless career soldier she'd always projected than he was with the drowning woman underneath. Which wasn't his fault; he only saw what she wanted him to see. But it wasn't sustainable either. She was always going to break, somehow. The unravelling of her ambition was like water on a stone, wearing her down during that last year in Washington until all she wanted to do was disappear somewhere else.

_I'm not the person I want to be._

Remy was the only one to see her drowning. Remy was the only one ready to catch her when she finally broke, betraying her marriage and her job in the name of a few moments of peace. Remy was the only one who could have saved her, and in the end, he stood at her back as she found a way to save herself. He helped her light the bridge on fire. She's not sure one lifetime will be enough to show him what he means to her, the person he lets her be, but she's doing her best to prove his loyalty worth it.

Remy watches her for a moment as she goes quiet. She's still looking at the class schedule.

"No matter how long you stare at it, the Policy lecture is still going be at 9am on a Tuesday"

It's enough to break her out of her reverie, and she scrunches up her nose in a mock display of displeasure.

"Well, I don't know if I want to sneak in now. 9 o'clock is very early"

He snorts and shakes his head. She used to get more done before 9am than most people achieve in a week. He doesn't say as much.

"Canadian life has made you soft"

Jackie looks up at him then, her smirk melting into a genuine smile, her eyes shining with the sincerity of her happiness. She lets the schedule drop to the table and stands from her seat. With the grace of a dancer she moves into his space and lowers herself into his lap between his body and the table, facing him, her hands on his shoulders. Remy pretends to be irritated, but when she buries her nose against his neck and wraps her arms around him, his hands land flat on her back to pull her close and he takes a deep breath in. She can feel, in the way he holds her, that he doesn't want to let go any more than she does.

_You have me, right._

And wasn't that always the point. That they get to be softer; that they get to be kinder.

"Maybe it has", she says, her voice muffled by his shirt, and feels his hands press her just that little bit closer.

~0~

He finds her leaning against the tiled wall between the vanity and the toilet, pale, drawn, shaky. The cold at her back feels good; she doesn't want to move yet.

"This flu is really pissing me off", she says with a rasp. She spits into the bowl again and flushes the toilet behind it. The smell lingers.

Remy has that soft, worried look on his face - the one he used to wear just for her, when she was in some kind of unspoken and unseen trouble that he was trying to fix.

"I'm sure it'll pass", she says gently.

"I don't think it's the flu", he says with a furrow in his brow as he lowers himself to a crouch.

She's been hurling for nearly two weeks, feeling better some days and unable to get out of bed on others. Remy has made her more soup and soft vegetables than he's comfortable with.

At her confused look he hands over a little box he got from the pharmacy and watches her read it and then scoff.

"You're fucking kidding me", she says, looking at him. If she'd been standing up she'd have jutted out one hip and crossed her arms. Even as she gestures her hand with the box, the pregnancy test doesn't fall from her grip.

"Tell me I'm wrong to ask", he says, one eyebrow up.

And she wants to - wants to say it's ridiculous and impossible and she's too old and they would never - but she can't. Implants fail all the time, and even at 41 she's still fit and healthy and able.

Jackie looks back down at the box and suddenly can't look away, and Remy waits long enough for his knees to start aching at crouching so low.

"Help me sit up then", she says without looking at him, holding out one hand.

He does, and then turns around and sits on the edge of the bath without looking at her while she gets on the toilet and pees on the stick and then sets it on the vanity to develop. Jackie pulls up her pants, washes her hands, flicks down the toilet lid and sits on top of it to wait, her hands pressed flat between her knees.

After another minute of silence she finally looks at him.

"What will we do if I am?" she asks, her voice thin.

He meets her eye and can see she's paralysed by the possibility; by the implication; by what will change forever, or perhaps not at all, depending on what they decide.

"One step at a time", he says gently. "A stick isn't a doctor"

She needs to see a doctor about the vomiting anyway, and there's something about carts and horses.

Jackie nods, her face blotchy and skin dry from the last few weeks, her hair limp, her tee shirt an old grubby thing. She looks so far removed from the dresses and suits of Congress that it's hard to believe she's the same woman who once dressed down half the nation's Senators for a living and sat in the running to be President. She looks terrible, he knows objectively, but she also looks so honestly like herself – no airs and graces – that he can't help but find it endearing. He never used to see this Jackie, except in rare and unguarded moments when the world fell away from their stolen hotel rooms. They're still getting used to a quieter life nearly a year later, and she hasn't given up the pencil skirts and high heels at work. But he sees her in flats and jeans more and more often, and they enjoyed going to markets on summer weekends, and most of their time at home is spent on the couch, wearing track pants and a tee-shirt for a band he never expected her to like. Most of the time they are stupidly happy, and he doesn't think the results – whichever way it goes – should change that.

For a second he lets himself imagine that this Jackie – maybe sans the vomiting, but this lighter and warmer Jackie – is the mother of his child, even his wife. Things he's never wanted with anyone before but he wants with her.

She looks at the stick on the vanity and rolls her eyes. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me"

And then she picks it up and throws it at him.

~0~

"You know we still have options" he says. His heart breaks a little to say it, but he thinks it's important he does all the same.

Beside him in the crisp air, on the street outside her doctor's clinic, Jackie buries her hands in her jacket pockets and sighs.

"It's now or never, Remy. This time or nothing"

Which is the only point she's been stuck on since the stick showed up two lines; that they don't have the option to wait or consider or put it off for another year. This was an accident, and she probably wouldn't go into it with any kind of deliberate intent, so if they don't take advantage of the timing then the chance may just pass them by altogether.

"I know that" he says. "I'm just saying. You don't have to"

She looks at him hard then, a calm look on her face and eyes squinting a little in the hazy sun. She can tell from the look on his face that he's not trying to persuade her out of it, just the opposite in fact – he wants this more than he ever knew was possible. But it's equally important to him that the choice be hers. That she's not a victim of circumstance, even if they take advantage of it. Too often they have taken roads in life, not because they chose it, but because it just happened that way, and this is too important to be one of those times.

"I want to", says Jackie. She has that same set to her jaw as the day she met him in the park and told him they should go on the record with the whole messy story. The day they blew up their lives. Maybe he should learn to watch out for that look in the future; it seems to herald an immediate headache and then indescribable happiness.

Or maybe he's just struck dumb by the idea he might be a father soon.

Remy grins, trying and failing to hide just how wide his face is about to split open. She gives him a second to accept what she's saying, and gives herself permission to be excited in the same way Remy is excited, his weight shifting from foot to foot where he stands.

"Does this mean I have to marry you now?"

Jackie snorts indelicately and rolls her eyes, but remembers how they first started in the very beginning; _I wasn't asking to marry you_. She remembers comments about having kids without stretch marks, and other (much worse, much more painful) reasons to get hitched.

"Do you... want to?" she asks, hedging around the real question.

"I don't really care" he says. And she knows that's true, because he never cared about anything except being with her, however he could. "You're the one who's done it all before"

There's no bite in his tone but she winces all the same. The way she treated Alan will always be her biggest regret on her path to contentment. But it calls forth all the good memories too - the times she was happiest in her marriage, usually gathered around the table, all of them home, squabbling over Monopoly after they patiently sat through her less-than-awesome casserole and an apology store-bought cake. She remembers that day she confessed to Remy, _I thought I would hate it… but it's nice_, and the way they looked at each other with all the unrequited hopes between them.

This is her chance to have all that with him; with the right man. The possibility scares her shitless.

"One thing at a time" she says with a smirk, hiding her true answer for another time. She gestures to her still-flat stomach, "this is... more than enough for one day"

But it's not a _no_, either, and he holds onto that as he takes her hand in his, kisses the back of it, pulls her into his side with one arm around her and walks them back to the car.

~0~

"What if it's so warm I never want to go back?"

Remy smiles at her from the driver's seat of their hire car and rolls his eyes. "Trust me, after three days with my parents you'll be begging to get on a plane back north"

"But Canada is so cold in winter, and Florida is – I mean look, I'm in a tee-shirt, Remy. In February"

He doesn't bother responding again, but he laughs.

Jackie nervously pats her stomach, the usual flat plain just starting to puff out a little when she's lying naked on her back in bed. It's not even visible under clothes yet. Still, he knows she's unsure about staying with his parents for a full week. They've all spent time together before, over 4th of July weekend and a few other sporadic trips, but he and Jackie got a hotel room those other times, and after everything his parents must have seen in the news about her, Jackie isn't so sure of herself around them.

She shouldn't need to worry, but she does all the same.

After all, she went and got reckless. Not the kind that makes a young soldier go out and get a tattoo, or the kind that makes a sitting Congresswoman eviscerate her career. No, this kind of reckless gives a person their second wind. The strength to leave a marriage and go back to the right person, for the right reasons. A California girl moving to fucking Canada to be a lecturer at a university. An accidental pregnancy in her forties. She went and got just reckless enough to go after what she really wants, and somewhere along the way he got reckless too.

Maybe she's worried what his mother will think of this woman who seemed to barge into Remy's life and turn it completely upside-down, but that wouldn't be giving him full credit for walking into it with his eyes wide open. He knew what he was getting into when he let himself fall in love with her, and he knew what he was risking along the way.

_I don't care about what the rest of the world thinks of me._

But his family isn't the rest of the world. His mother was confused and his father was disappointed, but that was last year. That was in the middle of everything else going on, before they got to see that Jackie is not the only one who is better off living this life. They had time to adjust to Remy being out of the game, and he talked with them about moving away from Washington long before they ended up in Canada, so it's not the shock to his folks that it was to hers. But it's still an adjustment.

His mother keeps signing off their phone calls wondering how he can be so happy in a place so cold, which is her own way of saying she's glad to hear him enjoying his life, even if she doesn't completely understand it. Jackie appreciates that, at the very least, they don't hate her.

"My mother is looking forward to showing you baby pictures of me", says Remy. "Feel free to send out a signal if you need a bailout"

She laughs a little and looks over to him, and some of her nervousness melts away as she smiles.

"I don't need you to protect me", she says.

There was a period of time when he wasn't so sure, back when he was still in the habit of throwing himself in front of invisible bullets she never saw coming. She was always calling the shots and he was always working behind her back to lessen the damage, and in the intervening time they've had to unlearn all the ways they showed they love each other, if only for the sake of not repeating their mistakes. She tries not to make decisions without him; he talks to her about whatever's on his mind. They never have to worry, any more, about their work coming between them.

"Consider it backup", he counters. Because maybe he's done protecting her from a distance, but they are still on the same team, and he'll always be willing to run into the fight for her. She's still getting used to it, but it's nice to _have somebody_, in the way Remy once described. It's nice to know that the person at her side sees behind any façade she might put in place.

"Maybe this time your mother will let me look at her recipe book"

Remy laughs at her. "I sure hope not, I'd hate for my favourite childhood dishes to be destroyed like that"

Jackie scoffs at him, and lacking any small utensils to throw, smacks him on the arm with the backs of her fingers. "You like me in an apron"

"I like you in a lot of things. And out of a lot of things-"

Her smile turns into a smirk.

"- doesn't mean I want you attempting to cook griyo"

"I don't know what that is, but don't worry – I don't think I could stomach anything more than boiled potatoes anyway. You did tell your mother-"

"Yes, she knows not to fill the house with too many smells"

Jackie smiles in gratitude at him. Even with meds from the doctor, her stomach rolls at the strangest provocations. It reminds her of tours overseas to places with less sanitation, and she keeps reminding herself that this nausea will have a much better outcome. "Thank you"

Jackie turns and looks back out her window at the tropical foliage and bright, warm sun. "Canada really is fucking freezing", she says on a wistful sigh, stretching like a cat in her seat.

"Three days", Remy says. "I give you three days"

She'll take a lifetime, if they're allowed. She'll take whatever she's given.

~0~

It's hard enough listening to Remy speak effortless French to a shop assistant or a colleague. Hearing him recite passages from a French copy of The Wizard of Oz to their three week old baby makes her knees go weak. Jackie has been doing online classes while on maternity leave, but can barely pass for a tourist in her own city. Remy is determined that their child will grow up as bilingual as he did, and she knows his mother is glad to hear that the language of his home country is kept alive when he lives as far away as Canada.

_It's a good thing we happened to settle in a city that makes speaking two languages so much easier,_ she said to him once, when she was enormously pregnant.

_Who says that wasn't my plan all along?_

She had laughed at him then, but now she's not so sure.

"You stole my book", says Jackie, her voice raspy with sleep. His head turns to find her blinking awake. She reaches out her hand and takes hold of her daughter's perfect little toes; the baby is reclining on her belly along the length of Remy's naked chest, his body propped up against the headboard in the dull light of early morning.

"Is it even your book if you haven't started reading it yet?" Remy replies.

"I was going to start it when my French is good enough to understand it"

"And in the meantime, other people in this house are enjoying reading about Dorothy over the rainbow, there's no place like home"

Jackie rolls her eyes good-naturedly and sits up in bed, her movements still ginger and stiff from a difficult labour and lack of sleep since. As far as she's concerned you make a home from where you're standing, not by clicking magic shoes together. Jackie takes the book from Remy's hands, dog-ears the page he's on, and then tosses it on her bedside table. "Dorothy can go fuck herself"

While the baby is still too young to mimic them, she will absolutely take advantage of swearing. It'll be a hard habit to break when they have a small parrot running around, but that's future Jackie's problem.

Remy still pretends to cover the baby's ears. "_N'écoute pas_", he mutters.

Jackie marvels at how tiny her daughter is when Remy gently extracts her from his chest, his hands almost completely engulfing her by comparison, as he hands her over for a morning feed. They take some time adjusting, getting the latch right and making themselves comfy against a mound of pillows stacked against the headboard.

Jackie only realises she's been staring at the baby's tiny black eyelashes when Remy speaks up, his voice gentle right near her ear.

"Worth the stretch marks"

From anyone else it could be a joking kind of question, but from him… it's something else. There's a loaded history to this moment, and she knows everyone has their journey and nobody's life is completely easy, but to be sitting in their bed, like this, the three of them… she hasn't quite got a handle on her hormones enough not to tear up over it all. She doesn't let them fall, and Remy doesn't comment on it.

Motherhood doesn't come naturally to Jackie, and she's never been particularly maternal. Alan's kids loved her, but they were older and the infamy of being politically prominent was a novelty for them. (Though in Matt's defence, she was the better driver.) The months of her pregnancy became like a battlefield, drawing up plans and doing research like her life depended on it, once they were far enough through that she let herself hope for the best. More than once she had a minor breakdown, asking what the fuck they were thinking, but Remy was there each time to pick her up and remind her none too gently that many people have babies and she wasn't special for freaking out about it. Just like always, he helps her put things in perspective, so that even when things are uncertain they still have room to grow together, and in the same direction.

Maybe this is what she never had before, in relationships that never lasted long enough to find out – the way two people could somehow completely change without losing who they are, or the reasons for loving each other in the first place.

_I only cared about protecting you_.

And perhaps that's still true, only now they do it together, for each other, and in smaller and simpler ways.

Remy reaches out and touches the baby's toes, but his eyes never leave Jackie's face as he does, and when she looks at him they're shining with tears too.

"Oh yeah", she breaths, smiling. "Worth the stretch marks"

~0~

"Heather. It's Jackie Sharp"

At the other end of the phone line, Jackie can practically hear the confused look on Heather's face for the sudden phone call. They haven't seen each other in a couple of years, and haven't kept in touch despite the truce, the ally-ship, they once struck up in their fight against the Underwoods. Any news they receive comes via online articles, or the very occasional google search for curiosity's sake.

"Jackie. It's, uh… nice to hear from you"

It comes out as more of a question.

"I'm sorry for the call out of the blue", says Jackie, smiling at the pristine blue sky she can see from her back deck in Napa. They're spending Christmas with her parents this year, her first on the West Coast in a long time.

"That's fine", says Heather, recovered now. "It's an unexpected pleasure"

That might be stretching the truth a little, but Jackie appreciates it all the same.

"I heard you're Canadian these days"

Jackie laughs, and imagines it startles Heather to hear the sound. "Not quite, but I do spend most of my time there. Except during winter"

"Yeah, those winters are brutal"

Before Heather can get impatient with her, and before she loses her nerve, Jackie takes a deep breath and forges ahead. "You asked me once if my family ever grounded me… made me realise what's important"

Over the phone line she can hear Heather's small hum as a distant memory from those campaigning days comes back to them both. It was a strange time, and quite startling to work alongside another woman instead of a room filled with older men; more startling still to find they had so much in common despite their differences. In another world they might have even been friends.

This is one conversation strictly between them, and while Remy is out getting coffee and croissants for breakfast, Jackie perched herself in the sun on the back deck with her phone in hand. She looks down at the face of her four-month-old daughter where she's feeding at her breast and knows Heather will hear the smile in her voice.

"I didn't get it then. But I get it now"

She doesn't know if Heather heard about her pregnancy or the birth of her daughter, and doesn't care. But she needed her to know that the woman she said those things to wasn't ready to hear it, and the woman Jackie is now understands on a level she never knew possible.

When Heather replies, Jackie can hear a smile echoed back at her. "I heard something on the grapevine. Congrats to you and Remy"

It's not like Jackie ever expected total anonymity; a sitting Congresswoman running off with her bureaucrat lover after ousting a President in a career-ending tell-all would keep anybody in the zeitgeist for at least a little while. Californians still haven't totally forgiven her for it, even if they do let them visit in peace when they come back. But it's almost amusing that some people are still talking about them and what they're doing, given how completely they turned their backs on Washington.

"Thanks"

Jackie pauses for a second, and thinks about what the cost would look like, to live the life Heather does and face that uphill battle again, only differently. But her slate isn't as clean and the comparison wouldn't be fair to either of them, so instead she says, "Good luck staying in that fight, Heather. I wish you the best"

"You too Jackie. I'm happy for you"

And this time she knows it's genuine.

Jackie is about to start her goodbyes when Heather cuts over the line. "Hey listen… send me a picture"

Jackie grins. She has so few people to brag to about the baby, the offer is unexpectedly touching. "Okay"

"What's the name?"

"Genevieve. It's a family name"

_For Remy's grandmother_, she doesn't bother to add.

"Send me a picture of Genevieve", repeats Heather, her voice soft. "There's no babies around here, I miss cooing"

Jackie laughs, and appreciates that while they may not strictly be friends, she and Heather remain at the very least allies. United now in motherhood too, a role Jackie never expected to fill yet treasures the most.

"I will"

Behind her the keys jingle in the door as Remy announces his arrival home with food.

"I'll let you go. I just wanted to call and…"

And what, she's not sure. Recall a memory. Tell Heather she was right. Admit that the old Jackie had no idea what the fuck she was doing with her life, or at least no idea how to live it well. Or maybe speak to one of the few people who might completely understand how monumentally different she is now.

"... well… you know"

"Yeah. I get it. You take care Jackie. And say hi to Remy for me"

It sounds like a parting shot across the bow, but Jackie would like to believe it's more like an extension of solidarity from a world that so often gives the opposite.

"You take care too. Bye"

She hangs up the phone as Remy steps out to the little table and chairs, depositing a white paper bag and coffee cup holder, and a kiss against her hair in greeting. She and the baby are under a small table umbrella that he adjusts for the shifting sun.

"Who was that?" he asks. His hand runs over the baby's head, but she's finished feeding and Jackie starts pulling her away and adjusting herself.

"Just an old friend"

He doesn't question it further. She watches as he silently takes the spit cloth off the table and throws it over his shoulder, taking the baby when Jackie silently hands her over. She picks up the cup with the skinny milk divot pressed and can't stop the grin that spreads over her face as she watches Remy lightly patting Genevieve's back.


End file.
